Black Sox pick up exhibition victory

With the Ontario Baseball Association Midget ‘AA’ Championship set for next weekend, the Cambrian Mazda Black Sox continue to prepare.

The Black Sox opened a weekend exhibition series against the Thunder Bay Mountain Hawks on Saturday morning with the second game of the series rained out. The series was scheduled to allow the Sox to get into game action with the OBA Championship’s set for next weekend in Sarnia.

The Sox opened the weekend series with a 9-3 victory over the Mountain Hawks on Saturday morning. The game was called in the bottom of the sixth inning when heavy rain began to fall. The game was called with the Black Sox in a position to score as they had the bases loaded with one out and J.J. Bergamin at the plate.

The Black Sox spent last weekend in Thunder Bay playing exhibition games with teams in the area. The Sox dropped a pair of games by scores of 3-0 and 6-4 before scoring a 5-0 victory. The fourth game of the weekend was rained out with the Sox up 2-0.

“It was important that we play some games with wood bats,” said Black Sox coach Mike Lebel. “And to make sure our whole pitching staff gets some games. You can only do so much in practice. To have games that situations arise that we need to execute and work on. We do things here that we wouldn’t do in a game normally but because we needed to work on them, if a situation arises then we work at it.”

Bergamin pitched five innings in the win. The veteran pitcher gave up just one hit, a fifth-inning double to Jesse Covealis, and five base-runners. Kyle Leonard pitched the sixth inning, giving up three runs.

The Black Sox got on the board early when three walks opened the game and Kyle Sayers drove a Jesse Covealis-pitch to centre field which was misplayed, allowing Nick Moon, Kyle Diotte, and Joey Lesage to score. Sayers wound up on third and scored shortly thereafter. After scoring a pair of runs in the third and fourth innings, the Black Sox capped off the scoring with a single run in the fifth.

“A couple of our kids hit the ball really well,” Lebel said of the game. “It’s good for our pitchers to work against wood bats because the ball isn’t hit as it usually is with aluminum. If they don’t hit the ball on the sweet spot it doesn’t go anywhere.”

The two teams will meet again on Sunday morning at 10 a.m. with hopes of possibly getting a pair of games in. Time constraints for the Mountain Hawks will determine whether two games are possible or not.